Skip to main content

Talks About Foreign Property Investors in Australia


There is no surprise that amid property price growth in Australia (especially in Sydney) some people would be interested in explaining the reasons of it. Beyond market conditions (demand higher than supply, low interest rates, higher income than many other places) there is also a tendency to blame foreign investors in influence on the property prices.
I have personally heard sentiments about this from persons who couldn't afford to buy property for themselves to live.

For some it is possibly easy to mark people who they see as competitors on the property market as foreigners. As an illustration you might consider this quote:

... I think it is hard to deny. If you imagine an auction on a weekend where you throw in an extra buyer who is willing to pay a little bit more than everyone else there, if that buyer happens to be foreign, maybe as a temporary resident, and they are buying the single place that they are able to get approval for, it is hard to deny that it would not push up the price.

Dr Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor, RBA, Committee Hansard, Sydney, 27 June 2014, p. 8.

At the same time how it is possible to identify the nationality of a person at an auction - by looks, by language, by behaviour? Unless we ask for their passports I presume.

Anyway foreign investors do exist. In regards to real estate, in 2012-2013 following 7 countries were the biggest investors in that sector (in $m):

China5,932
Canada4,926
USA4,406
Singapore2,008
UK1,671
Malaysia1,600
South Africa953

Foreign Investment Review Board Report 2012-2013

However in regards to them dominating the price push the facts tell it's exaggerated:

Foreign investment is not a significant driver of increased housing prices, playing a minor role in the overall housing market, and representing around 2.5 per cent of total annual sales.

Meriton Group, Submission 14, p. 2.

Very interesting.

Some links in regards to this matter:

Report on Foreign Investment in Residential Real Estate, 27 November 2014
Housing affordability: Are foreign investors to blame for Australia’s high property prices?
Foreign Investment in Residential Real Estate
One in six homes bought by foreigners
Where foreign investors are buying in Australia
13 facts about foreign property investors
Foreign buyers purchase up to 40pc of new Sydney, Melbourne homes

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Wine - 2011 Brown Brothers Crouchen Riesling

Very nice wine with fruity taste - peach and pear: Consumed with Hungarian salami. Tasting notes .

Scrum - Team Culture and Wall Manifesto

In the Scrum framework one of the key components is the wall and daily stand-up. In some organisations I worked with the whole concept of the wall is not accepted by many developers, because of the stand-up necessity and "time waste". Very often all that methodology is used for the sake of methodology and not to achieve what we actually do - adding or creating value to our customer (usually called "The Business"). I can understand frustration that is caused by the wall and stand-up process. From the software developer perspective it is really a waste of time for the following reasons: 1. In 95% of cases developers are head down working like hell delivering valuable outcomes that they are accountable for. Extra effort to go to the wall, staying there for 15-30 minutes and listening or not listening to what others were doing yesterday and will be doing tomorrow is annoying for them; 2. The mere fact of having to do something mandatory to do that looks like

Mastering The Multitasking

There is usually two distinct perspectives on multi-tasking: 1. Multitasking is counterproductive. We get distracted by multiple tasks that all get our way and fight for our scarce attention, time and resources. This leads to a common fallacy that if you do multiple activities “at a time” you are not doing good work in any of those. 2. Multitasking is a way of getting many things done in a short period of time or in a long run. Indeed it can be either a disaster or a great helper depending on how it is used and practiced. Most recent research shows that we don’t do multiple tasks purely in parallel or simultaneously. That means we don’t purely multi-task, but switch between tasks and execute them one at a time, but by spending very small timeframes on each task. A good example from the history is a story about Julius Caesar capabilities in that area. Plutarch writes, “Caesar disciplined himself so far as to be able to dictate letters from on horseback, and to give directi